Posts Tagged ‘The Wasteland Chronicles’

The cover is here! I struggled with a title and a story for a while, but it’s just now starting to materialize. And DIS COVER…

It communicates the entire book perfectly. Now hopefully I can finish a story that can do it justice.

I have the next ten days free from work (yay vacation!). But now I will be doing another kind of work – working like a madman to finish my book and hopefully go through a round or two of edits before December gets started.

Wow. Just, wow. I wasn’t expect to write this post until next year (that’s how optimistic I am).

A little over a month ago, I wrote my milestone post for 1,000 sales. It took months of hard work and slogging in the trenches to get to that point, and I was very proud of that achievement. I didn’t even reach 1,000 until August, when I had three books published.

Now, October 3, 2013, I’ve gotten 2,500 total sales on The Wasteland Chronicles. I am stunned speechless by that. I am so glad that readers are finding the books, and it’s so encouraging when they reach out to me to let me know how much they like them. It’s been very crazy, and it just makes me want to work harder and reach higher with these next books.

I hope that’s what I’ve done with Revelation. I’m over halfway done with my final edits, and then it’s to the copy editor. It should be out in a week or so (depends on how fast the copy editor can work through it, as I should be done editing sometime in the next two days).

I face a lot of insecurity as a writer, because I know what I write isn’t perfect/there are still major flaws that come about as a result of my inexperience. I’m getting better as I go along, and I’m just very glad that you guys have come along to explore the world of the Wasteland with me.

All I can say is, I am very awed and very humbled by everyone who took a chance on Apocalypse and ended up liking the series. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t say that enough. You guys are awesome.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around how fast things seem to be taking off.

I have been stunned by the response the The Wasteland Chronicles has gotten in the past week. I really don’t want to say numbers right now, but let’s just say I’m getting more downloads a day than I got a month, at least when I first started out. It was all because of setting my first book to be permanently free, which probably increased my sales by a factor of three.

Then, on the twenty first, the BookBub promotion, went out, which kickstarted my first book to visibility. Apocalypse got to, and stayed, in Amazon’s top 100 free for five days straight. It peaked at #7 on the twenty second, and hung in the Top 25 for a while after. On Apple, Apocalypse has been the number one downloaded science fiction (or at least held that spot) every day since the twenty first. It’s tapering off, now, and it’s been so much coming in that I’m starting to wonder whether this is going to last a lot longer that the one month I originally expected it to.

It is absolutely amazing. I haven’t really told anyone about it except my parents and family, because I’m still afraid it’s not real. I never expected this much of a reaction. I will be at work, and then the thought will hit me: I’ve sold over 100 books today. It doesn’t seem real. It seems ridiculous.

And it’s not only people downloading the books, they are leaving good reviews and even reaching out to me to let me know how much they enjoyed them.

In short, it’s a dream come true. This September has been my craziest, best ever month in writing. But I wouldn’t be here today without all the support I’ve received, from friends, family, and fans. And of course, working hard through the times when I’d go days without a sale.

I’m hard at work on Book 4, and it should still be out on the 1st. Needless to say, a lot more people are waiting on this release than Book 3. The pressure is on, but it’s a good pressure. It makes me want to continue improving. I’ve gotten a lot better since book 1, and I’m trying to keep it that way.

So far, Revelation is 71,000 words, the longest installment so far by a long shot. I’m adding on a few more thousand words, but it’s already been edited through three times by yours truly. The majority of the weekend will be spent editing and getting rid of typos. I will have my dad helping me out with that, and maybe some other people. It’s a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. I plan on hitting publish Monday night, so it’s available in the morning.

I can hardly wait. Thank you so much to everyone – to everyone who found the book for free, and everyone who took a chance on it back in the day. It means the world to me.

Alright, I’m very excited about this cover. Amazing work once again from Luke Atkinson.

Alex and friends return to a Wasteland in turmoil. The Raiders are scattered, the Exiles hunted, and the feuding Vegas gangs plot one another’s destruction. Makara, head of the New Angels, has the difficult task of convincing disparate groups to work together before Emperor Augustus and his legions arrive.

But while humanity fights amongst itself, the Great Blight prepares its final onslaught – and at the center of it all, there is a secret that could spell the end of the invasion. It is a revelation only Alex can discover…and it might cost him everything.

I hit a major milestone today that I’m surprised I noticed. The Wasteland Chronicles passed 200,000 words.

That seems a like a lot of words. But really, it’s just a little bit over Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (which, admittedly, is a fairly large book).

I finished the first draft of Revelation today – I think. I may add on an ending that’s less cliff-hangery, but for what it’s worth, it’s pretty much done. It’s only 43,000 words or so now, but I imagine that will grow as I comb through it and add on to it. I’m on target to have it out by late September, which would be ideal.

For the first time I’m ever, I’m writing every day and sticking to it. It feels great to have finally conquered the part of me that always wanted to write, but never did. I think putting my books out there and seeing the successes has kept me going on – the believing that it was possible. I finally woke up and went after it probably around last December, when the first one came out. I’m working on it all the more, now.

It’s been an amazing journey so far. Now, the first three books are out, and all have paperback versions. I want to make some slight changes to third one before finalizing it (even though it’s published – that’s the beauty of e-publishing – you can always go back and tweak some things).

Before I know it, Book 4 will be out. Book 4. It’s crazy that this is starting to become normal. It’s the kind of normal I love.

For the first time in a while, I’m going to write a post. I used to do this more often, but I have just been letting general busyness get to me, I guess. I think that is a good thing, overall. With my new job, I have much more time to write, and it’s really showing. I began my new manuscript two Mondays ago (Aug. 5th) and it is already nearing 19,000 words. At this rate, the first draft might even be done by the end of the month – and hopefully from there, will be published anywhere e-books are sold by the end of September (and hopefully, a paperback will be available as well).

So far, I’m very pleased with how things are going. I think I’m reaching a point where all this hard work is starting to pay off. Don’t get me wrong; it was paying off from the very beginning. People are finding my writing, and (generally) enjoying it. I’m finding new readers, slowly. It’s encouraging, especially in that I do very little to promote my work outside of the occasional Goodreads giveaway (to which people enthusiastically respond, just from the sheer premise of the book and the cover art). It’s encouraging to see people going onto the next in the series. It tells me I’m doing at least something right.

I honestly couldn’t be happier (except, maybe, if I became, in the words of Forrest Gump, a “gazillionarie”). To me, it’s always been about the writing. Writing is what I believe I’m best at, and it’s what I have the most fun doing – which is why it’s amazing to see anyone read and enjoy my work. I’ve always known that if I wanted to reach the stars, my best chance of getting there was honing my craft and becoming the best writer I could possibly be. What I write isn’t the most intellectual stuff, but my goal is to write a fast-paced story that is hard to put down, something that hopefully has good characters that readers can grow to love (and hate) over the series. Basically, the kind of stuff I like to read, mostly in science fiction and fantasy realms (though I do read outside of those genres as well).

It’s always a work in progress, and I’m always learning. It takes a while to get where you’re going, especially when where you’re going is always changing. I expect that as I keep writing, my goals will always be shifting. I will always be aiming higher, to craft a better story and to reach more readers. I’d always intended to self publish the Wasteland Chronicles, owing to the novella format. In the end, it was the right decision. Self-publishing allows me to write, edit, and reach my readers faster than any other means.

It’s a lot of fun, and if you had told me a year ago that by this point I’d have three more books published, I’d want to find a time machine. Last year around this time, I was pretty depressed because I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do. I wasn’t writing (at least, not as much as I am now). I dreamed of getting to a point where I was writing and managing my books on a daily basis. On August 13th last year, I was working a depressing job and struggling to cobble together the first, short draft of what was to be called “The Wasteland Journals.” A couple weeks ago, I found a really old manuscript of that draft and thought it had been written by a retarded fish.

I have come a long way. And the progress I’m making now makes me look forward and dream to where I’ll be a year from now. A year from now, The Wasteland Chronicles will have long been done. I might be working on a second series by that point (perhaps set in the same universe). I might begin work on the epic fantasy series I’ve always wanted to write as a kid. I will likely have eight or nine + books published. By the end of this year alone, I will have at least two more published, and hopefully, with the time my new job affords, maybe even more.

I feel like nothing can stop me, for the first time in my life. I’m not my own worst enemy anymore. I’m finally doing what I want to do, and it feels great.